


out of ash

by captainodonewithyou



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Multi, so much is happening here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-05-05 12:18:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14618385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainodonewithyou/pseuds/captainodonewithyou
Summary: Literally just Infinity War with Daisy Johnson and the SHIELD crew.





	1. the thick of it

**Author's Note:**

> This starts up like relatively true to timeline, assuming the crew figures out their alien thing and then the Thanos thing begins relatively immediately after. I'm ignoring the Coulson death prophecy but also making Daisy director of SHIELD because I goddamn feel like it. There's probably going to be a shitton of crackship happening here, consider this your warning. Things are gonna start slow while I lay out the groundwork and get a feel for writing fic again, though. I'm gonna try to update weekly through the summer!

She is curled on her bed, reading.  It is one of the books Lincoln left behind, she has kept this one with her.  It is a medical book, full of words that Jemma and Fitz could probably decipher, if she asked.  But she isn’t bothered that she doesn’t know what the cramped font is telling her.  It is the neat scribbles in the margins she is concerned with – she traces her finger along the careful loops of his handwriting, the uneven underlining of words in narrow black ink. 

 _“It’s like this,”_ she can hear him saying, as she touches a note that trails between the page margins, through the gutter where the pages bind together.  His words blend together as his excitement builds, up into a slanted word in all caps which had gotten blurred somewhere along the line, probably by her. 

Jemma had invited her to dinner with the rest of the team.  It was an olive branch, or maybe more aptly – her taking hold of the boulder of a piece of their friendship that had crumbled, over the past weeks (or the next hundred years, really).  Daisy had not turned down out of any ill will, or she at least told herself she didn’t.  But she did greasy diners alone, better.  She didn’t know what she would have to say to Jemma anymore, stuck sitting across from her in a sticky booth.  Worse, if she could manage to sit beside Fitz at all without squirming away.  Jemma frowned when Daisy told her she was sorry, she’d already made plans for the night, her forehead creasing with concern.  Daisy had not felt any particular obligation to smooth that crease away, and had turned back to her room instead, having now committed herself to a night of plans she did not have.

She closes the book a little harder than she intends, and the pages whip shut with a snap.  She leans over, shoves the book deep beneath her bed.  It has been better, away from the Bunker where every corner reminds her of him.  But since things have settled down, since she has been more distant from the team than maybe ever before – it has been harder and harder not to linger endlessly on him.  It makes her skin itch with anxiety, her heart stutter a nervous plea.  She needs to get out, breath fresh air.  Her tennis shoes are tossed in the shadows beneath her bed next to where she has tossed the book, and she hangs further over the edge of the bed to retrieve them.

Then her phone rings.

It is Simmons, and for the briefest moment she considers not picking up.  It is habit that makes her hit talk, more than conscious choice – and she hesitates a moment before pulling the receiver to her ear.

“It’s fine, Jemma,” she is saying before even giving a greeting, anticipating the reason for the call. “I’m just not hungry, and I was looking forward to a night in, there’s no deeper—“

“Daisy, the news --“ Simmon’s voice is panicked, and Daisy stumbles up from her bed, fumbling with the box TV set across the room.  A feeble signal pulls in a fuzzy image of Manhattan, bleeping headline scrolling across the bottom of the screen in red.  A strong wind sways the camera, and leaves and hats and crumbled trash whoosh all in one violent motion, all moving the same direction.  The camera shudders and tilts up, revealing just a shining silver corner of the source of the wind.

It’s a spaceship.

…

Daisy dresses in her suit on the Zephyr, snapping her gauntlets into place last. 

“How is it looking, Piper?” she leans into the cockpit, unsteady in the unusually turbulent ship.  They’re getting close, it had not taken long.  It is, maybe, the only advantage to Coulson’s thrusting of the leadership of SHIELD on her.  The only permission she needs is her own – and though it occurs to her that it might not be the best image of leadership, to take off on a mission alone without a word to the rest of her team – fighting her own battles again at her own will is a welcome change.  Something she has not realized she missed, from her days alone.

“I can’t say what it is,” Piper responds, flicking a screen to display the whirring analog of the signature they are scanning off the distant ship.  “Which means, at least, it isn’t Kree.”

This surprises Daisy.  It had seemed a certainty that the vessel was a result of their too-recent trip into the future overrun by the Kree, such a certainty that she had not even considered that the incursion might not be directly related to her. 

“I’m really not sure if that is a relief or not,” she answers.

“Variety is the spice of life, or whatever.”

“I think that generally applies to chocolates, not aliens.”

Daisy settles into the seat beside Piper, narrowing her eyes at the void they are nearing by the second.  It looks familiar, the style of the tech.  But Piper is right – it isn’t Kree.

“Am I dropping you?” Piper asks, flipping a lever which steadies the turbulence just slightly, “I’m not sure I can land her in these conditions.”

The Zephyr gives an affirming jolt at her words.

“Guess you’re dropping me, then,” Daisy answers, and squints again. “There,” she motions to a wide space of green amid the vast sea of concrete, near to the spinning ship, “get me over that.”

Daisy rises back to her feet and lifts a chute from the rack above her, throwing it over her shoulders and hurriedly beginning to tedious process of strapping into it.

“Send a message back to Coulson and the team.  I need Fitzsimmons looking into this signature.  I’ll have my com, tell them to update me with anything they learn.”

Piper nods as Daisy ducks out of the cockpit, giving the parachute a final tug as the dock folds open and stinging air roars in to meet her.

She isn’t the first to the scene.  She is still stumbling upright when something bigger than leaves and trash roars past her in a whir of machinery, shining and red.  She whirls in place, strands of her hair stinging against her cheek as she follows the burst of hot air and machinery with her gaze, all the way up to the spacecraft.  Another, different blur of red shoots sideways, up against the brick of a building in the distance.  The second blur is a man in a scarlet cape.  The first, Daisy realizes with more of a jolt of excitement than she cares to admit – is Iron Man. 

“How was the landing?” the com crackles in her ear, and she adjusts it with a finger and a hard shake of her head – concentrating herself on the scene.

“Fine,” she answers, scanning the green space ahead of her. The scarlet cape is back on the ground now, and seems to have succeeded in flipping off the engines of the ship, which were causing the cyclonic wind.  The air goes eerily still in snap, and Daisy can hear men’s voices in the distance.  Iron Man is shooting around in the air in pursuit of something which Daisy can’t quite make out.  Neither of them seem to be achieving a great deal.  “Late to the party, but not missing much.  Are you in touch with Fitzsimmons?”

“Yes.  They’re on it.”

She makes a decision as the red caped figure is thrown sideways again – because this time she can make out the deformed grey creature behind the attack.  She darts forward, raising a hand and feels the vibrations of the air carefully under each finger, like she is tuning humming guitar strings.  She finds the pulsations she is looking for easily and presses violently forward on them.  The air blurs in front of her, the ground tremors beneath her feet, and the grey alien shoots backwards clumsily, caught by surprise.  The caped figure crumples to the ground and Daisy hurries to his side.

His own hands are in the air before she can reach him, golden spirals twisting and shaping in the space in front of him.  Daisy stumbles to a stop readying herself for a blast.

“Hey!” She snaps, as the shimmering lines continue to burn.  The caped man’s eyes bore into her, mouth set in a hard line as his fingers twist. “I just saved your ass, cool it.”

“I had things under control,” he grumbles in a low voice.

“Could definitely tell.  I also like to let my enemies toss me into buildings to show my dominance,” she smiles a hard line and turns her back on the man just in time to catch grey a blur out of the corner of her eye.  She braces for an impact which never hits – the golden light flickers behind her, blocking the cement block the grey alien has sent barreling her way.  It crumbles against the light barrier, and Daisy starts – staring back down at the man who is now hurrying to his feet.

“And I like showing mine by turning my back to my enemy,” he growls, deadpan, but a glint of a smirk tugs at the corner of his thin lips.  “Call us even.”

The alien is preparing another attack but Daisy is ready this time, sending another pulse of energy his way.  He is also ready now, though – and stills the pulsing air with a nod of his head.

“Shit.”

The man throws up another shield as the alien sends another blast of rock their way.

“You’re powered,” the man notes, nodding at Daisy’s hands. “Inhuman? Mutant? Haven’t signed the accords, have you?”

His tone is matter of fact, not accusing, but it makes Daisy bristle.

“None of your business really, is it?”

She takes a different approach to the alien, shooting a pulse at the ground beneath his feet.  It shatters and he goes flying, but catches himself midair.  He throws a hand at Daisy and her feet fly out from under her, and her stomach twists into her throat as she shoots backwards.  She slams into a tree and crumples into the grass with a groan. 

“Little out of your league, huh?” mutters a voice behind her, behind the tree she thinks.  The tone again isn’t accusatory but her head is spinning and the words feel like an attack.  She is hyperaware of the grey alien now, and she scrambles before she has fully regained her bearings, crawling back behind the relative safety of the trunk of the tree.  Another man is already ducked back behind it.

“I’m sorry, this coming from –“ she looks the man up and down with an impatient blink – he is bruised and bleeding.

“I didn’t mean it any way,” he defends, throwing up his hands to show his surrender, “we all are out of our league.  Look at me, can’t even get myself out there when it really counts.”

She blinks again, harder.  She needs to get back to the fight, needs to figure out what the hell is going on, but white is still edging her vision from the blow.

“What is it?” She asks breathily, closing her eyes and breathing in slowly through her nose.  The ground is spinning under her.

“That? That’s a crew sent from Thanos.  He’s putting together a nifty little collection of stones.  We’re trying to stop him.  It’s going well.”

She presses her fingers to her forehead, scrapes hair out of her face.  Then hits her com.

“It’s Thanos. What do we know about Thanos?”

The man regards her warily.

“Who… is we?”

It is Simmons who comes back over the line. “I don’t suppose he’s come to earth for a holiday.  Fitz and I will get you what we can.  He – there’s a history.  With the Avengers.”

“Kid,” the man says, impatient now – “who are you talking to?”

Her head pounds and she sighs, flipping the com off.  She holds a hand tensely out to him, and he cringes just slightly away.  She thinks she probably imagines a flash of green rolling across his skin.

“Not a kid.  Agent Daisy Johnson.  Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.”


	2. one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I decided to start in a new place with this because the beginning maybe isn’t always the best place to start. I’ve been thinking a lot about vulnerability and the place of that lately, and this story seemed like a cool place to investigate that. This is pretty much all angst, so hang in there. I think there is a payoff, if I’m doing my job right. Sorry about the bits that get a little jumbled or rushed, I’m a mess when it comes to more than one draft/editing on the best days, and I’ve been doing this around my last semester of undergrad so my mind wanders, plus it has been some time since I last wrote these characters. So no one is surprised, I ended up focusing on a Daisy/Steve pairing.  
> PRE-STORY INFO: This starts under the assumption that Daisy has stepped into Coulson’s place as director of SHIELD. During the events of Infinity War she worked alongside Steve to try (and fail) to stop Thanos without killing Vision. This story picks up upon the team’s return to Avengers HQ after the end of Infinity War. This is mainly interested in being a character study so forgive me for the glossing over of the finer plot details! I know they are vague and ancillary and that was sort of the point, I think. Thank you, enjoy!

She throws fist after fist at the weighted bag.  She didn’t take the time to wrap her fingers, and pulses of contained energy are bounding out of her with each thrust, tearing through the material and sending dust flying.  Her knuckles ache, one has split, but she keeps going, relishing the burn that starts in her hands and works its way up her arms, into her shoulders.

A better leader would not have let it come this far.  A better leader would know the next move.  May, she thinks again, would know the next move.

Jemma, Mack and Yoyo were left at the base.  Yoyo was the calmest of the three, and Daisy gave her coordinates, told her to gather weapons and Mack and join them at headquarters.  Jemma was frantic when Daisy spoke to her, barely able to hold herself together.  Daisy told her she needed her to work on a way to track Thanos.  That if she could get her that, Daisy would make things right. 

It isn’t a promise she can keep.  She throws another pulsing punch, and the bag splits down the middle.  Pain shoots up her arm and she keeps punching what little remains of the bag, imagining it is Thanos – solid, weakened, unable to do anything to stop her from reaching him.  She tears him apart molecule by molecule, piece by piece, until everything is blue and she is on her knees, body quivering, eyes watering, a stench of burnt plastic in the air.

Steve is the first thing to clear through the dust, leaned up against the door frame, watching solemnly with a hard gaze.

“Thanks for not doing that on the flight.”

“Fuck off.”

He ignores her, pushing off the door frame and stepping into the gym, through the settled blue dust.

“This is why we can’t jump straight back into things.  None of us are in our right minds.  We need sleep, to cool down—“

“I don’t need you telling me how to do things, _Captain_ ,” she snarls.  She feels weak, but she pushes herself off the ground to come to her full height, which next to Steve isn’t much, but she stares fiercely up at him. Sadness is still etched deep into his face in spite of his best efforts to mask it.  “I lost family today.  I’m not going to just _cool down_.  And neither should you, this high and mighty above all normal human emotion crap is _bullshit_.”

He had fallen to his knees, in the place Barnes disappeared, and even once the rest of them were ready to get up and move again he had only sunken deeper into the ground, eyes closed, hands clutching at dry soil.  There had been a moment Daisy had thought he might not get back up.  She stood in front of him, said his name (the first thing she’d said since screaming for May again. And again.  Her voice was on the edge of breaking and had shattered halfway through his name, into a million shards).  She put a hand on his shoulder.  Told him they had to go.  He touched her hand with his and it had felt like lightning, like static rushing through her, like Lincoln.

“ _Someone_ has to hold themselves together,” he says, voice robotically calm, eyes flashing just perceptibly watery.  “Hold all of us together.”

She laughs, dry and harsh, rolls her eyes and steps forward, begins to move past him.  They’ve been working on the same team for months now.  This, now, is another level of chaos beyond anything they’ve experienced yet – but even still, they have faced things that should have at least shaken the man, even just a little.  He has had yet to flinch, always playing out cool as a cucumber.  Always presenting calmly, jaw squared, almost stony. Together, they’ve rescued children and failed to rescue children.  They’ve seen team members wounded, they’ve seen each other wounded.  They have seen the best of humanity, the worst of humanity, and the worst of everything beyond humanity, too.  It doesn’t faze him.  It never does.

“Well I sure hope I’m on a different _planet_ when you finally snap.”

Her arm brushes his as she passes him, and his hand twitches around, tangling firmly around her wrist.  Holding on but not dragging her back.  His fingers are warm and long and rough with callouses.  The worn pad of his thumb rubs at her palm.  She feels that lightning tingle up her arm. She resents him for it.

“People _count on me_ to hold it together, Johnson,” he says, voice still that low rumble, but there is a note of something raw behind it.  Something pleading.  His thumb is moving absentmindedly against her palm, and he pivots just slightly so he is looking down at her now.  Heat radiates from him, she is close enough to feel the molecular structure of that heat churning. “Sometimes you don’t have another option.”

He is looking at her like there is a gun to his head and somewhere in his words are the key to saving his life.  He has never spoken this way to her before.

She feels so hollow that it hurts, and the emptiness is more painful than the trapped buzz of energy rapping endlessly against her ribs.  She pulls her hand back from him and clutches hard around her stomach, squeezes her eyes shut.  She won’t lose control in front of him, not again. 

But she is brimming with spite, with frustration – and she wants him to lose control.

“Like you had no other options,” she hisses, filling the tense space with something, anything else, “in that plane, sacrificing yourself for the greater good?”

He doesn’t respond.  Doesn’t move away from her.  Doesn’t blink.  The lack of reaction ignites something in Daisy, and she almost snarls.

“You made that choice, didn’t you?” Her voice is shriller, accusing, now. He sets his jaw.  “You made the _choice_ that there was no other option.  It had to be you then, too, didn’t it? You went down with that plane, and Peggy Carter—“

“Went on fine without me,” he interjects, finally, voice not raised but solid, final, steeped in the warning that she is going too far.  

They’ve talked about their losses with each other, in the strictest of unspoken confidences.  The unspoken confidences that come with long nights mid a mission they are both hopelessly lost in, that come with cross-world Zephyr flights with just the two of them – the unspoken confidences that partners, whose asses are entirely in the others hands, share between one another.

She doesn’t care.

“Without you,” Daisy repeats thickly, hoarsely, feeling all the emptiness swell and scratch at her heart. “You sacrificed yourself and she lost you, she had to go on and keep going on _alone_. And you lost everything.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“But you saved the world.” She laughs, hard and bitter, and the tears in her eyes threaten at her lashes. “We’re the ones who make the sacrifices. We’re the ones who don’t get to be saved.  We’ll save the world, at the end of the day.  But we’re always going to lose something to do it.”

“We made that choice.”

“No. We didn’t.  Don’t you want to not lose everything? Just once, don’t you want to have something you get to choose for yourself? I’m tired of _losing_ , Steve.”  

The last words are raw and bitter and linger on the back of her tongue. His eyes are bright, her body aches all around, and she needs to feel full again. 

He wipes briskly at his cheek with the back of his hand, but most of the tears have already sunk into his beard, and he misses the one lingering beneath his left eye.  She instinctively reaches up, thumbs it away, even though tears are blurring her own vision now.  Her touch lingers, and she feels her way along his cheekbone, cradles his scratchy bearded jaw in her palm.  The tears aren’t how she wanted this to play out.  She wanted him to get angry, to yell back at her – but now he is crying and silent and she realizes she didn’t want any of this, not at all. He still just stands there, perfectly still, as tears fall.

“You finished?” He finally asks, voice scratching.  She can feel it hum against his jaw.

“I’m sorry.” It comes out a whisper. She hastily drops her hand back to her side, tucks her fingers into a fist.

“You’re right. A little.”

She has always known him to be quiet, contemplative, shy, even.  The first mission he helped SHIELD on, he had barely spoken a word to her outside of the business itself.  The second, was more extended.  He’d stayed on base, and getting him to participate with the group, to keep the morale unified, had been as hard as if she was trying to pull his teeth out of his head.  Breaking through to him on a personal level became important to Daisy, for reasons she boiled down to her own hardheaded stubbornness.  He likes to draw, so she sat in the same room as him while he did, reading a book or watching television.  She went to the kitchen for meals at the same time he did, and learned by offering him a beer that he didn’t drink, on account of being unable to get drunk. She mixed up some powdered lemonade instead, extra sweet, unconsciously, because that was how she and Lincoln made it. She even told him this, not fully aware of what she was doing, and as she poured him a glass he was looking at her in a different way.  So she kept talking to him. The more she talked, the more he talked back. 

He doesn’t wait for her to speak now, though.  

“I’m tired of losing.”

He is still standing boldly close to her, shoulders squared – boldly close because he is Steve, and because he gives her an arms-length even sharing a couch for a movie, or side by side at a table eating.  He only stands this close to her back to back, in combat.  It isn’t uncomfortable.

“But I haven’t lost everything,” his ever-steady jaw twitches, and his eyes scan hers slowly. “And I’m not going to stop fighting for what I have.”

She should stop this now, but she touches his face again, feels along the line of his jaw, the corner of his lips. She has to feel him, needs the touch to assure herself that he is there in front of her.  He reaches his hand to cover over hers, his fingertips brushing her bleeding knuckles gingerly as he turns into her palm.  His gaze runs over the oozing scarlet.

She knows she should pull away from him, knows he would watch her leave and never bring this up again.  She knows they want different things, can see in his watery gaze, can feel in his tender touches, that whatever this is unfolding between them is so very different for him than it is for her.  But she feels inside out, twisted up, and he is beautiful and solid and a distraction that will make the world physical again.  She needs the world to be physical again.

His chest is hard and she can feel the shape of every individual muscle as she brushes her fingers down the training shirt, around his waist, digs them into the base of his spine, hovering closer to him.

He folds closer to her, letting her other hand free as he reaches to cradle her jaw, turning her head gently upwards to him.  He kisses her forehead first.

She wants to tell him that for her, if they do this, it’s a one-time thing. That there is no space in either of their losing lives for whatever this could be if it were not. She is distracted, she doesn’t know if she ever says it out loud.

If she has said it, his answer is cautiously pressing his lips to hers, and she can’t even be sure that he has heard her.  He is gentler than she wants – than she needs – soft lips caressing hers, thumb stroking her cheek, beard scratching.  She urges more, pulling her body flush to his, sucking his bottom lip into her mouth and running the tip of her tongue across it.  

“Daisy,” he mutters, her name barely a breath, with nothing attached before and nothing trailing after.  

She expects to have to urge him forward, to convince him to carry on, but he cradles her jaw with his rough palm, tilts her head back, kisses her harder, tangling his fingers in her hair.  His coarse beard scratches and scrapes against her chin and nose and lips.  She stumbles backwards, pulling him with her, opening her mouth to his in an embarrassingly loud moan when she stops short against something solid – the back wall, maybe – and his hips bump forward against hers.  He pulls sharply back, cheeks flushed, swollen lips forming an apology which she swallows with a softer, lingering kiss.  She parts only to reach for the hem of her shirt, pulling it up over her head hastily and watching his heavy gaze cross over her as she does.  

He touches the scars on her gut with a brush of his thumb, hardened fingers crossing hardened tissue then grasping into the soft skin of her waist.

She pulls him closer again, buries the scars between them, and doesn’t think about when she will have to let go.


	3. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm uploading a couple more chapters through the week then a few more after that. Take that as you will.

Banner goes out of his way the next morning, piling plates and plates of eggs and toast and jam and butter on the long table in the kitchen.  No one is hungry – everyone mumbles it in different ways as they collect into the room.  But he isn’t having it.

“Starving yourselves is the quickest way to lose to Thanos,” he says with certainty, and the plates are filled too high and painstakingly for anyone to insult him by not taking a seat and a plate.

Daisy takes a slice of crisp toast and sits next to Coulson, who is prodding a heaping pile of yellow eggs with a plastic fork.  They’ve been moved endlessly around the plate, but are otherwise untouched.

“How are you holding up?” she asks, tearing a corner off the toast. Her stomach grumbles loudly but the thought of putting the toast in her mouth, and chewing, and swallowing, and then doing all of that over again is daunting and more than she can commit herself to.  She drops the slice and the corner to the plate with a soft clatter, and glances sideways at Coulson – painfully aware of the futileness of the question she has posed.

He still is poking at his eggs.

“I’ve been worse.  I think. It doesn’t seem plausible, that I haven’t been worse.”

Daisy doesn’t have a good answer to this, and hesitantly presses the corner of the toast into her mouth instead.  It is dry and her mouth is drier, and she chews slowly.  After a long moment, she swallows hard.

“We’re going to get her back.”

“We’re going to get everyone back.”  She looks up sharply.  Steve entered the room without her noticing, and is taking a seat across from them, next to Bruce, plate empty.  Dark circles have sunken in under his eyes overnight, and Daisy wonders if he slept, or if he lay up all night, staring at the ceiling and feeling useless, like her. She suspected no one at all had slept. She herself had spent the night in the lab she found while wandering the halls, coding bleary eyed until the sun began to rise.

His gaze meets hers fleetingly and he looks away quickly.  There is no sign of last night in those eyes.  The only evidence at all is a particular bruise creeping up his neck under the collar of his shirt, one Daisy knows was not from Wakanda.

”Your team is on their way,” Bruce says slowly, after a stretching pause. “They should arrive any time now. I prepped the lab for Agent Simmons and myself to autopsy a few of the aliens we brought back, and Agent Johnson – Cap can show you the tech center.  It is top of the line machinery. Maybe you can work on a way of tracking Thanos.”

She opens her mouth to say something about finding it herself, about being way ahead of him on coding a tracking system, to mention that YoYo and Mack had been unable to pry Jemma from the lab at SHIELD HQ– but this time she doesn’t miss the kitchen doors swinging open.  Daisy has never met Tony Stark but she knows it is him when he parades in, trailed by a blur of blue.

“I don’t understand why you’d make us come _here_ , this is not the way to defeat him.  Get me to him, and I’ll finish him.  That’s all we have to do, just get me to him.” The blue alien is circling Stark, limping, words sharp and almost metallic. 

Stark isn’t in much better shape than she is.  Blood is seeping through his shirt, one of the Iron Man arms is still on him and stiff.  He takes a look around the room, brushes past the alien and comes face to face with Steve, who had risen swiftly at the disruption and is still eyeing the blue alien uncomfortably.  Daisy clenches and unclenches her fists under the table.  Coulson’s hand is at his waist, and Daisy realizes he’s carrying his gun.

“Tony,” it is Banner who speaks, also rising to his feet. “Strange? The kid?”

Stark doesn’t break his gaze with Steve.

“Gone.  Rhodey? Romanov?”

“Wakanda.”

“Vision?”

“Gone.  Maximoff, too. And Sam.”

The blue alien lets out an angry noise behind Stark, which he ignores – glancing instead across the table, over Daisy – gaze landing on Coulson.

“Well you are definitely supposed to be dead,” he mutters, mostly under his breath. “Am I dead? Is this hell?” He stares at Steve again. “Must be hell. Still, nicer than I was expecting.”

“Agent Coulson and Agent Johnson are here from SHIELD,” Steve says distantly. “They lost people too.”

Another, longer, pause.

“Ah, my favorite disgraced and disbanded not-so-secret society.”

“You talk a lot of shit for a guy who sat and watched Thanos collect at least two of the stones,” Daisy snaps, rising to her feet, not entirely certain of the root of her sudden outburst, but absolutely certain that if she doesn’t defend herself and her team now, there is probably no scenario in which she can. 

Stark raises an eyebrow.

“Johnson? Not the same Johnson who refused to sign the accords, shot a U.S. Air Force general, took down a bank – Quake, they call you? That’s you, right? I’m listing the right screw ups? Because I can find the right ones, if you’re someone else.” He pauses, shooting her a cold, hard stare. “I’ve had you on my radar since your first tremor, kid.”

“Hey,” Steve mutters with an edge, glancing nervously between the quivering dish in front of Daisy and Stark’s hard grimace. “Take it easy, Tony.”

Tony’s eyes linger somewhere beneath her jawline and she reaches a hand quickly to cover over the bruise at the base of her neck with her hair.  His eyes flick back to Steve, to the matching purple splotch not quite covered over by the collar of his shirt – and he laughs dryly.

“I’m glad the two of you have had time to bang out some plans for taking out Thanos and getting our people back.  Hope you really dug in deep.  Hit all the spots.”

Daisy flushes against all her best efforts, anger flaring stronger in her gut.

“Actually,” she hisses, “you got here just in time to help us brainstorm.”

Daisy feels Coulson’s confused gaze on her red cheeks.

“Tony, relax,” Banner steps closer to him, brow furrowed, “we haven’t even been back from Wakanda a whole 12 hours.  We’re getting there.  Recuperating.”

Stark laughs again, and Daisy’s heart pounds.

“I imagine reclining on the beach with a three hundred dollar bottle of mezcal when I think of recuperating, but to each their own, I guess.  Man, 12 hours, you two got right on it, huh? Didn’t even need a _moment_ to mourn.”

“Tony, don’t,” Steve says under his breath, warningly, and Coulson looks to him now, confusion deepening in the lines of his brow.

“Don’t what? Tell everyone you and Agent Johnson here played naked twister all night? Weird way to try to save the world, but what do I know.  You tend to be the highest authority on what’s right around here, don’t you Cap?”

“Grow up,” Daisy says sharply, pressing a hand to the table and ignoring the clatter of plates as it shudders underneath her. “Things were tense, we needed an outlet, we found one.  It was just sex.”

Steve makes the slightest noise, of protest, maybe, but falls quickly silent, clamping his lips as if the sound snuck its way out of its own accord and this is the only way to keep more from surfacing.  Even Tony doesn’t break the tense quiet that encompasses the room. Steve looks over his shoulder at her, meeting her gaze fully for the first time since last night.  She looks quickly away.

“For future reference, Johnson,” Stark finally says under his breath, “I don’t need your help feeling guilty.  But thanks for the concern.  Also, while I’m handing out advice, it might benefit you to consider that maybe Captain America, sweetheart of the 40’s, _iconically_ in love with one woman for the past eighty years, seventy of which he was an ice cube, ten of which she hasn’t remembered him, doesn’t do ‘just sex’. Just a thought, though.  Word from the unwise asshole who sat and watched Thanos collect at least two stones.  Take it or leave it.”

His tone is no friendlier than before, but his attentions drift elsewhere now – seemingly having decided that Daisy now is facing punishment enough for her harsh words.  One brief glance over Steve’s set jaw and the angry red flush creeping up behind his beard is enough to twist her gut and confirm this to her.  He is looking at the floor, gaze unwavering.  It is impossible to tell whether he is more upset with her words, or Tony’s.

“I’m going to find the tech center,” she mutters, when it feels like the silence can’t stretch out any longer. She doesn’t leave time for a response to this, turning on her heel and leaving breakfast, Tony, Steve, and everyone else in her wake.  The door slams hard behind her.


End file.
